


doumeki's bizarre adventure

by eratedgore



Category: xxxHoLic
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon, Surrealism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-15 17:14:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29067879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eratedgore/pseuds/eratedgore
Summary: Doumeki Chihiro picks up groceries for Watanuki Kimihiro, as always. The grocery store is the same as always. Watanuki’s shop, however, has completely changed when Chihiro returns.
Relationships: Watanuki Kimihiro & Original Character(s)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11





	doumeki's bizarre adventure

**Author's Note:**

> listen. a bloodline is highly tied to a singular man that exists over centuries. wacky things happen. LISTEN.  
> original doumeki character. tried to make it a little eerie? let me know if i succeeded

There is a light flickering in the grocery store. A shadow pulses in the white aisle behind Chihiro, as he stares into the cold case. He’s been looking at the ground beef for too long, and the man at the deli is glancing at him curiously. Chihiro chooses something that’s not expired, and finally moves on. Some old pop song plays over the speakers, not loud enough to entirely muffle the sound of his steps against the dirty tile floor. The cashier struggles with giving him the right amount of change, and someone in the line behind him keeps coughing, a wet hacking sound. The sliding doors open, and Chihiro is hit by a blast of hot air. The walk to the shop makes his shirt stick to his back, and sweat drips into his ear. Chihiro shifts, and the plastic bag handles cut into his hand.

He stares blankly at his hand resting on the doorhandle. Cicadas cry noisily from behind, and the setting sun makes his hair feel like it’s on fire. He sighs through his nose.

The door creaks open.

He hadn’t pushed on the handle, had he? There’s a rush of cold air, and a chill runs up Chihiro’s spine. Steadying himself, he enters the shop, and closes the door carefully behind him.

“I’m back, Watanuki,” he calls, and waits. 

And waits. And waits.

He waits for nearly an hour (maybe, maybe only a second, maybe a few minutes) before giving up. Nobody is coming to greet him. The shop is in a strange state. Usually, Maru and Moro lead him to wherever their master has settled, but neither of them are in sight. Chihiro will have to find Watanuki himself. 

Mist curls around his feet as he walks. The humidity is bad for the wood, Chihiro thinks, without knowing if that’s true or not.

 _Follow your feelings,_ Watanuki once said, blowing out smoke, _or don’t. It’s not my concern. Your brain, your heart… what happens is not because of either of those, but in the end, it is your fate._

It is fate then, Chihiro decides, if the floor collapses beneath him. It is fate, it is fate, it is fate. A mantra he has sustained himself on for his past life.

Up, left, down, right, down a set of stairs he has never seen before, crossing a bridge, crawling through a tunnel. Then, up, up, right, forward, backwards, upside down. Chihiro clutches the plastic bag to his chest, wading through water. This can’t be good for the floorboards, he tells himself.

Children laugh from somewhere deeper within. Their footsteps patter down hallways that seem miles away. Chihiro is tempted to follow the sound, but it simultaneously puts him on edge. He doesn’t want to get tempted away from the right path (not that he knows if he’s on the right path or not). He’s been lost before.

“Watanuki?” he whispers so quietly he might as well only be thinking the words. “Watanuki, where are you?” He steps forward cautiously. The floor creaks where it didn’t before. Footsteps sound from a room above him.

The elevator dings, and the doors creak open. Chihiro steps in, and the doors close, choosing a floor for him. Numbers light up in red, blinking softly. In the corner, the metal has a stain like a shadow. Chihiro watches it carefully as the elevator rumbles. Watanuki has always protected him. Always. Even when he looks like his thoughts are far away, he is always aware. He calls to things that Chihiro cannot see, and with a mere word can send them screeching out of the shop. Chihiro is safe in the shop. (He thinks. Hopes.) The shadow stain will not hurt him.

The elevator dings again, and Chihiro steps out into the garden. Cherry blossom petals shower down, illuminated by a full moon. What is midsummer, Chihiro thinks, to a shop that operates outside of space and time? Chihiro stares at the sight, then lowers his eyes to the place where Watanuki likes to sit at. The smell of alcohol is nauseating for a moment, and Chihiro realizes it’s coming from the bag. Rummaging around in the groceries, he doesn’t find anything unusual. After all, he’s too young to buy alcohol, and Watanuki doesn’t particularly like to drink a lot anyway. He sighs, and opens the door back into the shop.

A man speaks from a record player, voice crackling and occasionally muffled. He explains the theory behind noise based magic, and how to weave a spell by whistling. When he demonstrates, Mokona exclaims in indignation, and someone Chihiro believes to be Watanuki laughs. He doesn’t really know; he’s never heard Watanuki laugh like that before. A different voice speaks, asking for further clarification.

“Now, this is only what I’ve personally come up with,” the man explains. “I’m sure there’s other variations out there.”

“It’s quite an interesting subject,” Watanuki says.

“I’m sure you could figure it out too, Kimihiro,” someone else says.

Kimihiro. Even thinking the name feels strange. To imagine that Watanuki once had someone so close to him that they could call him that. Chihiro feels like he would get a weird look from Watanuki if he ever tried. (Part of him wants to try anyway.)

Chihiro had heard of a time from his grandfather when the shop was full of life. The original owner of the shop was dramatic, a tease, entertaining, mysterious. Watanuki was young, would grumble and grouch, and occasionally laugh and smile (not in the way he does now, supposedly). The shop wasn’t so dark, wasn’t like a dungeon or a living trap. Humans and spirits would visit for more than just wishes. This was long, long ago, of course. Thinking back, Chihiro can’t remember who his grandfather had learned it from, and he wonders if it’s just a myth. Watanuki, full of life? He can’t begin to imagine it.

When Chihiro once asked about the people speaking in the recording, Watanuki said that the man who used magic was probably still alive. The other, he had no idea about.

“Maybe dead,” he said, eyes staring into some other dimension. “I haven’t checked in awhile.”

“Haven’t checked in awhile,” Maru and Moro echoed. Chihiro hopes he’s alive, or if he’s dead, that Watanuki never knows. Watanuki knows everything, but Chihiro can’t imagine what the death of the one person who called him by his first name would do to him.

“Are you listening, Doumeki?” the record player asks in Watanuki’s voice, crackling and distorted.

“Mn,” Chihiro answers at the same time his great grandfather does. The record stops.

All the lights have gone out. The hallways feel like a winter’s night, standing in a place where the moonlight and streetlights dare not touch, and the cold is so sharp you can smell it. Chihiro pulls out his phone, using it as a flashlight. Once, Watanuki had looked at it with furrowed brows.

“I remember when phones could flip open and closed,” he said, dangling Chihiro’s phone between two fingers. He sounded like he was a thousand years older than he really was, talking like that. If Watanuki dropped it, Chihiro could probably get his mom to buy him another. How did it crack, she would ask, why weren’t you more careful. It was Watanuki, he would say, and she would sigh, without any other choice.

“They still make those,” Chihiro answered. “Did you ever have a cell phone?” Watanuki tossed his phone back at him, and Chihiro caught it.

“Mm, yes, technically.” The landline rang noisily in another room until the answering machine picked up. Watanuki never elaborated.

The battery dies. Chihiro moves forward, stumbling slowly in the darkness.

It’s not as if the shop has never done this before. It was one of the things Chihiro’s father had warned him about early on. The Doumeki men generally visit (assist, supervise, serve) Watanuki until their first son is in high school. As it has been since the man who subjected them to this fate started it, the duty is handed down from father to son. It has skipped a generation before, when Doumeki Asuka stayed until his grandson picked up the mantle. (Only once as a Doumeki woman assisted Watanuki. Only once.) When Chihiro was of age, his father no longer had to make the trip from the Doumeki estate to the shop, and now manages the temple while offering advice to Chihiro from his own experiences and the records left behind by others (compilation courtesy of Doumeki Hinata). There were only a few _rules_ his father had told him of.

In no particular order, they are:

  1. Do not damage the shop on purpose without explicit permission.
  2. Do not interfere in any ritual, no matter what you see or hear.
  3. Do not attempt to use any artifact without consulting Watanuki first.
  4. Do anything that Watanuki tells you to, no matter what it is.



The warnings and bits of advice Chihiro has heard are far too many to completely list. Avoid lighting fires within the shop for any reason outside of the kitchen. Don’t leave any windows open at night, even if it’s hot. Try not to say “you’re welcome” to anything, or you might invite something in. Insects usually don’t get into the shop; that buzzing is probably something else.

“The shop will shift someday, Chihiro,” his father said. “The layout will be like nothing you’ve ever seen before. You’ll get lost. What you need to do is look for Watanuki. Don’t try to leave. You’ll just go deeper in.”

It didn’t make sense, and Chihiro panicked when it first happened. And the second time. Watanuki had found him, crying in an empty room where shadows of fish danced on the ceiling. It was the first time Watanuki had ever looked shocked. What did he expect? Chihiro was only fifteen. By the third time, he learned.

The shop is living, Chihiro thinks, ducking underneath a low section of ceiling. It’s absorbed magic and energy for so many years that it’s developed a mind of its own. Damaging it on purpose would only ever lead to it attacking back. Twisting itself into a labyrinth is just something it does when in a bad mood. Chihiro could never imagine what would happen if it actually wanted to harm him.

He doesn’t want to imagine it.

Watanuki would protect him, he tells himself. Watanuki would protect him.

He opens the door a crack before realizing it’s the artifact room, and slams it shut so hard the walls shake. Chihiro refuses to even risk it.

There’s a set of stairs. Chihiro nearly makes it to the second landing when he hears a piano playing from the first floor.

He opens his mouth, and no sound comes out.

There is someone here with him.

The floorboards collapse.

Chihiro’s stomach jolts, and with a gasp, his eyes snap open. He’s in the room where Watanuki meets customers. The fake plant in the corner has wilted, it’s dead vines splattered across the floor like a bloodstain. The window is boarded up. Chihiro can’t remember why, or if it was like that before. He turns around.

One thing he has never thought, no matter how bad of a mood the shop was in, no matter how bad of a mood Watanuki was in, is “I want to go home.” Never once “I want to leave.” Sure, sometimes he is bored, with nothing to do but wait for orders. Sometimes, he is tired, and the floor is too uncomfortable to fall asleep on. And sometimes, sometimes, Chihiro is just scared. Never of Watanuki, no, never. Not Watanuki and his silence, or his distant and mismatched eyes, or his languid movements. It is a fear that comes from deep within of something he dares not put a name to or else that will solidify this fear and make it more real than anything else.

But, once here, Chihiro has never felt the need to leave.

The CRT television is playing static, emitting a high pitched tone. It is the only source of light in the room, and it hurts Chihiro’s eyes. The gaming console Mokona likes to play is tucked underneath the table, cords twisted and tangled like vines, and on top of the table are volumes of manga. Mokona is rarely around these days. Chihiro sees them maybe once a month, many sightings being in this very room. Watanuki never visits this room on his own accord, and neither does Chihiro. If he needs to wait for Watanuki, he tends to find his way to the garden, where he might water the flowers or check the trees for signs of rot or maybe possession.

Chihiro only enters the room to turn the television off. It would be bad if any spirits actually came out of it. The flickering light hides how the wires lift into a loop, and Chihiro’s foot catches on it. Throwing out his hands to catch himself, the bag of groceries lifts like it’s lighter than a feather and falls. Chihiro collapses to the floor for a moment before he remembers the eggs. Opening the carton, he finds that only one has broken.

A broken egg. His eyes widen.

“If things ever come to it...” the television starts to say. The man hands his son something. “Use this.”

Chihiro feels his pocket. The oval shape is uncrushed.

A gunshot rings out. Chihiro reaches over and turns off the television.

There is humming coming from behind a set of doors. It is soft, like a lullaby, and it gives birth to a new sense of dread within Chihiro’s chest. The lights flicker as he approaches, pulsing like a heartbeat. Beyond the paper screens, Chihiro sees the silhouette of someone’s profile. It doesn’t sound like Watanuki, but slowly, he reaches for the doors.

The humming stops.

The silhouette turns to look at him.

Chihiro isn’t breathing.

“Doumeki?” He flinches at the sudden sound, head whipping around towards the source. Watanuki stands at the end of the hall, one hand against the wall. His robes expose his chest and legs, pale as ever, and pool at his feet like dark mist. Maru and Moro poke their heads out from behind him. They smile a smile that doesn’t reach their doll eyes. Cicadas cry in the distance. “What are you doing over there?” Watanuki asks. Chihiro swallows.

“Looking for you,” he says simply, as if his heart wasn’t trying to burst from his chest. This kind of stress is awful for someone who’s only eighteen. Chihiro will have a head of white hair by the time he’s even twenty-five. “Brought the ingredients.” Watanuki has always stared at him strangely if he speaks too much, and so Chihiro limits himself to only a few words at a time. It’s come into his daily life, when he goes to class or the grocery store. Other people notice as well. They look at him strangely then, but Chihiro would rather it come from them than Watanuki.

He holds out the plastic bag in front of him. Watanuki walks towards him without a word, and Chihiro sees how dark circles linger underneath his eyes. In the faint light, he might as well be a ghost. 

Chihiro feels something that could be likened to fondness for this ghost nonetheless. He will still come when he calls, and even when he doesn’t. He will run little errands, and brave the endless corridors of the shop, and occasionally sit patiently when Watanuki has just woken up and goes through each name until he comes to his, and then calls him “Doumeki” in the end anyway. He waits with his hands folded while Watanuki looks right through him because Watanuki Kimihiro is all his family has ever known. Sometimes Chihiro feels like he could despise his fate, if he hadn’t grown up alongside Watanuki to the point where thinking of a life without him feels like the floor has been ripped out from under Chihiro’s feet. What would he even be doing? Living a normal life? Being his own person, instead of a copy of all the other Doumeki men Watanuki Kimihiro had made into his own? Awful.

Watanuki silently takes the bag from his hands, and Chihiro suddenly fears him opening it to find that all its contents have rotted and are crawling with maggots. He looks away when Watanuki peers inside.

“Hm,” is all he says, and turns away. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”

Chihiro is at his heels like a loyal dog, following every step Watanuki makes. 

“Do you know why the shop changed?” he asks. Watanuki doesn’t look back at him, but Maru and Moro glance at Chihiro. They giggle to each other.

“Has it?” Watanuki asks. “It seems same as always to me.”

Chihiro’s gaze is stuck on the nape of Watanuki’s neck. He has been lost before.


End file.
